June 12, 2011 -- Cuba's Socialist Renewal, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission -- Generation
R is an new bilingual blogin Cuba launched by pro-revolution Cuban
university students. It's their answer to Generation Y, the blog of
Yoani Sanchez, a Havana-based counterrevolutionary whose diatribes just
happen to be translated almost instantaneously into over a dozen
languages by her "fans" overseas. You can check out the English version
of Generation Rhere.

Dario
Machado is a well-known Cuban revolutionary intellectual and a member
of the Cuban Communist Party. In this commentary first published on May 7, 2011, in Spanish on the pro-revolution Cubadebate
website, Machado takes up a key challenge of Cuba's socialist renewal:
harnessing the enormous and largely untapped potential of Cuba's mass
media to achieve a better informed and more participatory socialist
democracy. As
Machado points out "dissent, change, reform, conflict, market, a
state based on legality, etc., are words that within a language, a
political culture and a socialist ideology such as those of the Cuban
Revolution have a totally different meaning to that ascribed to them by
the press at the service of the transnational corporations".

The sixth congress: notes on socialist democracy

By Dario Machado Rodriguez, translated by Marce Cameron

A
few days ago the sixth congress of the Communist Party of Cuba
concluded. It left in its wake a growing cautious optimism among the
great majority of the citizens who responded once more to the call of
the Cuban communists, thus confirming not only their confidence in the
role that this political organisation can play in the indispensable
transformations in Cuban society in a changed and changing world, but
also confirming the socialist impetus of Cuban society.

The
popular participation in the analysis of the Economic and Social Policy
Guidelines of the Party and the Revolution was not an inertial
response, not a formal participation. It was an expression of the most
important thing that has changed in Cuba since the 1959 revolution: the
culture of the people, the consciousness achieved by a society which
comes to grips with problems, trusts in its own forces and understands
that only by preserving unity can Cuba maintain the principal conquests
achieved by the people.

But
unity itself is only a premise, in the same way that however much the
Guidelines are an expression of the critical thinking of Cuban society
regarding the necessary changes, if these changes are not carried out
then they remain just another document. A viable economic model is
necessary. An efficient, unique, made-to-measure suit for our country,
for its conditions and premises, for its necessities, aspirations,
customs, political principles, history and culture.

The
framework for the popular debate was also clearly understood by the
people: this is nothing other than the beginning of a series of other
transformations that will continue in the economic sphere but which will
also touch on fundamental aspects of the political and juridical
organisation of the country.

A long-awaited congress

The sixth congress of the Cuban Communist Party has been perhaps the most
hoped-for congress by the great majority of the population, accustomed
as they are to their regularity and given the particular circumstances
in which this one has taken place. Given its transcendental nature, the sixth congress is comparable in importance to the first congress in 1975
and the Fourth in 1991.

When
as in Cuba, due to particular historical and political circumstances
there exists a single political party, this can only be and act as a
democratic institution if it includes in its strategic vision
and tactical leadership the whole people, the last line of defence in
the struggle against opportunism of all kinds.

If
it is the sole party and if the constitution enshrines its right to be
the leading force in Cuban society, there will be cases in which people
want to belong to it in order take advantage of its prestige and its
constitutional mandate and not exactly to uphold its prestige with their
own conduct and commitment.

The numerous occasions in which the party has carried out a popular
consultation to renew and consolidate consensus have not all been the
same. They have not had the same quality, nor the same importance or
transcendence. Among the most outstanding were the debate on the draft
[socialist] Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, the debate on the
documents of the first congress [in 1975], that which preceded the
Fourth Congress [in 1991], the worker's parliaments of 1991 and that
which has just concluded on the Economic and Social Policy Guidelines of
the Party and the Revolution, which were approved by the sixth congress
with the massive and indisputable backing of a millions-strong popular
participation.

It's
worth recalling that the process of drafting of these guidelines took
into account the results of a very broad and enriching discussion of the
text of President Raul Castro's speech of July 26, 2007, in which the
need for structural changes to Cuban society was recognised.

Absence in the media

The
virtues of the most recent preparatory debate, however, were dulled by
how little the content of these debates was reflected in the country's
media. They carried so little of this debate that what was reported only
served to highlight its absence.

The
publication of the Guidelines for the second stage of analysis by the
people took information already mediated and summarised by those who
drafted the document, but what was lost was the educational value, the
clarifying function and the ability to provide balance through the
timely reporting of the viewpoints of the people.

In
the main report to the 6th congress [delivered by Raul Castro] the
party's position on information policy was reaffirmed, one of those
documents that had been put to sleep for eternity in desk drawers.
Recognition of the grave error committed in not taking advantage of the
enormous potential of the Cuban communications media to enrich the
subjectivity of the citizenry through the open discussion of the
problems is the first step towards rectifying these problems.

Obviously,
this won't be easy. Among the powerful internal forces that must be
confronted in order to continue the revolutionary project is that of
spurious interests and opportunism that gets in the way of the necessary
transparency regarding to awareness of the most important things that
are happening in society. The first secretary of the central committee
of the party [Raul Castro], who had reiterated in the closing speech to
the sixth ordinary period of sessions of the seventh legislature of the
National Assembly of People's Power [in December 2010] that he would be a
staunch advocate of putting an end to secrecy, expressed it in the
following way in the main report:

"The
Cuban media in its various formats should play a decisive role in the
pursuit of this goal with clarifications and objective, continuous and
critical reports on the progress of the updating of the economic model
so that with profound and shrewd articles and reports written in terms
accessible to all, they can help build in our country a culture of
awareness about these topics.

"In this area of work it is also necessary to definitively banish the
habit of describing the national reality in pretentious high-flown
language or with excessive formality. Instead, written materials and
television and radio programs should be produced that catch the
attention of the audience with their content and style while encouraging
public debate. But this demands from our journalists that they increase
their knowledge and become better professionals even if most of the
time, despite the agreements adopted by the Party on information policy,
they cannot access the information in a timely fashion nor contact the
cadres and experts involved with the issues in question. The combination
of these elements explains the rather common dissemination of boring,
improvised or superficial reports.
"Our media has an important contribution to make to the promotion of the
national culture and the revival of the civic values of our society."

What
is certain is that the Cuban press is still dragging is feet when it
comes to reflecting the real country and is not at the level of the
advanced culture achieved by the people, in particular its political
culture. Just because the press doesn't give adequate treatment to the
country's problems doesn't mean that that they aren't discussed; they
are discussed by the people in everyday conversations and often in
spite of the imprecise and distorted information provided by the media.

An
inseparable facet of this new process of rectification of the Cuban
Revolution is the intention to achieve a journalistic and communications
practice through the media that is a democratising element in the life
of the country, by placing in the hands of the citizenry, in a
straightforward way without sterile paternalism and distortions, the
information to which they are fully entitled, awareness that will enrich
their subjectivity and make their participation more efficient.

The party of all Cubans

The
existence of a single party is not a condition of existence of the
socialist transition, and neither is the existence of several. What
is an indispensable condition is democracy and participation, in which
the will of the people is carried out, in which the people are the
political subject and what is done is done for the people.

The debate on the Guidelines confirmed an organisational, ideological
and political principle of the party's work among all Cubans: if we have
a single party then this is the party of its militants and of the other
citizens, it is the party of all the people. If someone who is opposed
to the ideology and the political principles of the party and the
socialist revolution expresses their views with full freedom in the
party's call to debate, the process could hardly be more democratic,
because it offers space for all opinions, those that are revolutionary
and socialist and which have been the majority in Cuba since 1959 and
those that are not. In the main report to the 6th congress, Raul Castro
gave the example of 45 opinions freely expressed in the debates that
advocated allowing the concentration of property ownership, in other
words for private initiative to breach the socialist frontier.

It
would be impossible to conceive of a society of solidarity and social
justice in which the logic of its economic reproduction is that of
unlimited individual accumulation of money and power. The defenders of
capitalist ideology talk about the inevitable failure of socialism,
precisely because it does not give free reign to individual enrichment
through the labour of others, but their political culture enables the
great majority in Cuba to understand with sufficient clarity the
consequences of not placing limits on private property. Because of this
these isolated and minority views did not prevail, but the overwhelming
majority of viewpoints addressed the necessary and urgent structural
transformation of the Cuban economy and society based
on socialist principles.

But
what is fundamental regarding the political work of the party and the
need for a profound change in mentality is that expressed by Raul
Castro: "...while there tended to be general understanding of and
support for the content of the Guidelines, there was not unanimity and
this was precisely what we needed if we really wanted a democratic and
serious consultation with the people".

Unanimity and false unanimity

Unanimity is not impossible, it can be achieved after a certain lapse of
time, in specific circumstances and regarding concrete aspects of
social life, but unanimity is neither daily nor permanent, it is
conjunctural, exceptional.
What occurs daily is differences of opinion and conflict of opinion. One
of the indispensable aspects of the change in mentality is rooted in
precisely this: the recognition of differences, the diversity of
opinions and of their conflict, for which it is necessary to banish
triumphalism, the bucolic mentality of accommodation to bureaucratic
inertia, intolerance towards different views, even those radically
opposed [to our own], and to learn to carry out a dialogue, to resolve
differences and conflicts through negotiation, which implies recognising
ourselves as equals rather than as superior to others.

his is the root
of socialist democracy, which in no way harms political unity, nor
discipline, nor does it imply making concessions of principle. What's
more, everything that happens in Cuban society has to take place within
the framework of the country's socialist constitution and according to
the laws of the republic, and the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) must be
the guarantor of this, that is precisely its fundamental role as the
vanguard organisation of Cuban society.
Whoever is unprepared for this urgent change in mentality will be — as a
friend of mine is fond of saying — "waiting for the bus where it
doesn't stop". The construction of a socialist state based on legality
requires a different emphasis on the relationship between the individual
and society.

Steps
in this direction have already been taken with the necessary changes in
legality that accompany the rectification of the economic model [such
as the relaxation of some of the restrictions on self-employment —
translator's note], which together with the required changes in methods
and styles of political work will allow us to advance in the necessary,
efficient articulation of the four fundamental aspects of the socialist
transition: the socio-economic, the organisational, the legal and the
political-ideological.

This
articulation that has its own dynamic must be as harmonious as
possible, and given that socialism is a society that is constructed
consciously, it is a task that requires the timely adoption of the
changes that are needed in each moment, as well as anticipating them as
far as possible. This is what is meant by the Cuban president's call to
"be alert, keep our feet and ears to the ground".

Fearing neither words nor changes

Only
one who is not genuinely revolutionary can fear changes and words. The
construction of a socialist state based on legality is the natural
political-legal counterpart to the socioeconomic changes that involve
the recognition of the role of the market and the corresponding changes
in the characteristics of the relationship between the individual and
society. "The state", said Raul Castro on December 18, 2010 [in the
National Assembly], "regulates its relations with the individual, but
the state does not have to involve itself in anything to do with
regulating the relations between individuals..."

This is precisely the task of the [PCC's] legal working group of the permanent commission for Implementation and development [of the Economic
and Social Policy Guidelines adopted by the PCC Congress in April],
which as Raul Castro explained in his main report to the congress, "will
coordinate with the corresponding entities, with strict adherence to
institutionalism, the modifications that are required in the legal
sphere to accompany the updating of the economic and social model,
simplifying and harmonising the content of hundreds of ministerial
resolutions, legislation and decree laws and at the same time will
propose, at the appropriate time, the introduction of the pertinent
amendments to the Constitution of the Republic."

The relationship between the above and the individual citizen is evident
in the following paragraph:

"Without waiting for everything to be
worked out, progress has been made in the legal regulations associated
with the purchase and sale of housing and cars, the modification of
Decree Law No. 259 expanding the limits of fallow land to be awarded in
usufruct to those agricultural producers with outstanding results, and
the granting of credit to self-employed workers and to the population at
large."

Commodity exchange, and the psychology of the exchange of equivalents
that it reproduces in society, demands the full recognition of personal
property, without the latter being converted into capital — into private
property in the means of production and service provision and the
exploitation of alienated labour that multiplies itself to the point
where it dominates over social property — because this would be the
inflection point that would allow free reign to the market. We must hold
up a shield against the osmotic pressure of surrounding capitalism
without which the healthy development of society in the socialist
transition would be compromised, recreating a deep social cleavage
followed by the absorption of Cuban society into its capitalist
surroundings, and with it the loss of independence, of the social
justice conquests and of the ability of the nation to construct its own
social project.

This is also the reason why we cannot talk about socialism without a new
way of conceiving wellbeing that educates people about healthy
consumption [rather than capitalist consumerism — translator's note],
solidarity, the internal equilibrium of society and of society with
nature, with the environment. The above relates to the indispensable
role of education, of values, of ethics in the society in transition to
socialism, of socialist ideology as social armour against the continual
siege of capitalist ideology, with its psychological weapons, with the
consumerist temptation, with individualism and its deceitful freedom
that now enjoys a more favourable substrate in a Cuban society with the
opening up of a greater space for market relations.

This concept of wellbeing does not at all mean that the enjoyment of all
the goods that society produces should be egalitarian, but it does
imply essentially a rejection of consumerism and egoism. The society of
the socialist transition must recognise the right (unequal, as with all
rights) of people with different qualities, aspirations and social
contributions to receive individual benefits from society in proportion
to their contribution to society, which implies that the limits of
individual, personal [i.e. non-capitalist] property cannot be set
bureaucratically, but can only be defined by consensus with thee
participation of all the citizens, always on the basis of a socialist
principle: everything that one receives on the basis of honest work,
one's contribution to society, is ethical.

During the transition to socialism it is ethical to receive more if you
contribute more. What is not only morally impermissible but also
economically non-viable is that one does not receive from society
according to one's social contribution, be it more or less. Because of
this, those who are more capable, more responsible and who carry out
work of greater complexity and that requires more expertise, ability and
experience cannot distinguish themselves from the other members of the
collective on the basis of a meagre remuneration, bureaucratically
defined, that is way below the real importance and value of their
contribution, which has only resulted in demoralisation and the erosion
of consciousness regarding individual responsibility, as well as
discouraging initiative and the desire to advance and develop oneself,
not only for purely self-interested reasons but above all in terms of
ethics [that is, the desire to develop oneself as a useful member of
society — translator's note].

The change in mentality also demands a more conscious approach to
individuals exercising their right to participation in all spheres of
social, economic, political and cultural life, and the consequent
rejection of the authoritarian and dogmatic vision according to which
everything that is said or proposed must be "naturally" understood and
accepted by the citizen.

The market still has a positive role to play in the social process, and
in my view it will do for a long time to come. It will have an
organising role in relation to the prevailing psychology of the exchange
of equivalents. In effect, markets are a product of socialism [i.e. of
the transitional society], though they have a different content in that
they are bound by the framework of the plan and exist within the
framework of a vigilant socialist superstructure. The exchange of
equivalents that the market involves is still necessary and will
continue to be so for a long time, since it lies at the foundation of
the existence of the [socialist] state beyond the necessary defence of
sovereignty and the national space within which it exists.

The society in the transition to socialism is a society in which merit
plays a decisive role, but in relation to the distribution of what
society produces, as in many other respects, this cannot depend on the
arbitrary decisions of people [i.e. "the bureaucracy"] who decide what
is meritorious and what is not, determining remuneration on this basis.
Labour and its results have a dimension that transcends their strictly
economic meaning, having also a moral dimension. Whoever achieve better
results for having anticipated, organised better, planned better, must
be remunerated through the normal functioning of the socioeconomic
metabolism of the society in transition to socialism, regardless of what
anyone may think of this.

But
we cannot acknowledge the role of the market and not have a
corresponding legal framework that allows the accumulation of personal
[i.e. individual, non-capitalist] property, as long as it is the fruit
of efficient and honest work that is carried out within the framework of
legality and on the basis of the popular will.
What is taking place in the country is a profound and necessary reform
that is revolutionary in its content and projections because it is aimed
maintaining the socialist course, diverging from capitalist inertia.
Dissent, change, reform, conflict, market, a state based on legality,
etc., are words that within a language, a political culture and a
socialist ideology such as those of the Cuban Revolution have a totally
different meaning to that ascribed to them by the press at the service
of the transnational corporations, and this prejudices more than a few
short-sighted people towards the rejection of these terms, leaving them
to be the private property of capitalist ideology.

The sixth congress and national unity

The building of socialism in Cuba does not take place in "laboratory"
conditions, nor in conditions of acceptance by the developed capitalist
world and the hegemonic north-centric powers of the right of the Cuban
people to to have and maintain their chosen political system, enshrined
in its constitution. What happens is the exact opposite. Half a century
of socialist transition in Cuba has also been a history of repeated
propaganda, psychological, political, diplomatic military and sabotage
attacks and a genocidal and relentless economic war that has weighed
down continually as a colossal brake on the realisation of the
socio-economic development potential of the country. The mere fact of
sustaining the socialist path in a predominantly capitalist world is a
feat that could only be assumed by a dignified and cultured people.

The
unity of the nation is and will be the key to being able to confront,
with all and for the good of all [a phrase of Jose Marti], these
enormous external challenges, but also the powerful internal forces that
are embodied in those that have no interest, desire nor ability to
carry through the urgent transformations.

"We
are convinced" — said Raul Castro — "that the only thing that can cause
the failure of the Revolution and socialism in Cuba, putting at risk
the future of the nation, is our inability to overcome the errors that
we ourselves have committed during more than 50 years, and the new ones
that we may fall into."

Clearly,
all those who would benefit from the collapse of the Cuban socialist
revolution would wish that Cuba wages the political and ideological
struggle on their ground and on their terms, with which they themselves
do not usually comply, imposing as a standard for Cuban society a pure,
idyllic model of democracy that naturally nobody will ever achieve.

The
defence of the revolutionary project is a duty for those who have given
their own lives generously and for we ourselves, together with all of
the people, which have confronted the dangers, privations and
scarcities, have passed every test and have won every right, while
having strengthened their critical conscience, their political culture
and their ability to prevail.

The sixth congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, genuine fruit of the
democratic participation of the citizenry, was able to rebuild consensus
within Cuban society, strengthening unity within diversity and opening
up a new perspective of work and struggle for the future that is well
worth the effort. It brought everyone together to work for the proposed
objectives, above all the youth that will be able to find a space within
which to fuse their individual life-projects with the objectives of
society as a whole. This is the power of consensus, the power of
socialist democracy.

[This above translation first appeared at Cuba's Socialist Renewal, a site edited by Marce Cameron to "open a window to the English-speaking world on the debates and changes taking place in Cuba and provide a space for discussion and debate among supporters, however critical, of the Cuban Revolution". Cameron is an activist with the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society (ACFS) and president of the Sydney University Cuba-Venezuela Solidarity Club. To follow or to receive email updates from Cuba's Socialist Renewal, click on the link.]